The French National Assembly has shot down a bill that would have given music and movie industries an overwhelming amount of power to shut off end users internet access after a three strikes rule.

"Under the plan, the music and movie industries would have been empowered to analyze the downloads of individual Internet users to root out instances of piracy, and to report violations to a newly created agency. The agency was to send warning letters to violators; after the third letter, the Internet service provider would have been required to sever service. "

There was massive discontent in the entire country over the proposed legislation. The Assembly has 577 members, of those, only 36 members showed up on the day of the vote while the others boycotted the legislation. The legislation was shot down by a 21-15 vote.

While this is a victory for end user rights in France the legislation framework is not completely dead as an amended bill was going to be proposed within weeks.

Hopefully this message will go out to all foreign governments that this type of big brother act is not acceptable and that users of the internet in the free world will not stand up to such violations of privacy.